Emergent
by sydcon522
Summary: emergent [ih-mur-juh nt]: coming into existence: Story about how Tris explores and unravels in her new life post-war. Does not include events from Allegiant and several things are different about the end of the war as well as certain characters. (i.e. deaths, ages, post-war government, Tris/Tobias relationship struggles)


Author's Note: Heeeellllloooo, this is a new story of mine loosely based off of this horrible

old fanfiction I wrote on this website a couple of years back. The story will follow from

the perspective of Tris, post-war. This fanfiction doesn't regard anything occurring after

Insurgent and I did make some changes in the death's of certain characters as you will

find throughout the story as it develops.

I did rate the story T, but that may change depending on how the story develops. I swear

a lot and talk about sex, but there are no graphic scenes in the book thus far and if there

are, I'll change the rating and put a forewarning at the beginning of the chapters.

Feel free to leave constructive criticism in the comments. Shit really does help. Like and follow the story if you feel like it :)

Disclaimer: Do I even need to say it? I don't own jack shit from the Divergent trilogy and

probably never will. Just a love for the series and a passion for writing this lil' thang.

Prologue:

It's like I grew up here, and everything that once was, is now not. Of course, I suppose I did grow up here. I grew up in my own mind. Everything about my life is because of my brain isn't it? Everything I've seen or heard or felt or learned, it all rests on my shoulders. And everything has changed. Every comfort I ever found has been torn away. Every person who had shaped my mind and life was either dead or hated me excluding Christina and Will. But even then, they are more a part of my new life than they ever were my old. He however, has managed to infiltrate every corner of my mind. And then ripped himself from me, leaving vacant and diseased parts of my mind. Where he once danced through my thoughts, he now has left trampled and hurting.

I find my thoughts wandering into darker and darker corners of my mind. Everything I say sounds like bad poetry. I had hoped that I could find comfort in the bottom of empty bottles of liquor. It burns going down and sucks coming back up, but it's a welcomed distraction. How un-Dauntless of me. To hide from my own thoughts by drinking so much that I can't stand straight and doing things that could kill me just to avoid facing my newest fear. Tobias.

I don't use his name in public anymore. On occasions that I am forced to interact with him or he comes up in conversation I refer to him as Four. I don't shy away from the idea of him either. I stand boldly in front of him and speak clearly and politely as though I don't feel a thing for him and never have. It's those nights that I drink the most. How ironic, that the person I shared and overcame my fear of intimacy with, has replaced that fear with the fear of their presence. Christina knows little of what I feel or do. She's been so busy with her assigned tasks that we hardly see each other. I tell myself that it's a good thing. The lack of interaction makes for lack of inquiry as to the state of my well being.

I knew I would fuck up everything when I left him that night to go help Marcus. I knew he would be angry and feel betrayed, I knew I would lose his trust. I couldn't have imagined that he would never speak to me again. I don't regret doing a single thing that i did. It was a war and I made a split decision. I didn't rationalize. I figured, what would it matter if I had him at the end of all this? As long as we're alive and safe I can be happy. I didn't realize how profound my deception of him was. I also had no idea how much his absence would affect me when everything was said and done. It's not that I depended upon him, it's only that I told him everything almost out of necessity. Memories become knives that seldom leave one's mind undamaged once they are present.

When the war ended, everything was thrown into chaos. There was hardly a government and everyone feared one another. Everyone from every faction was interrogated by Candor under the truth serum to weed out Jeanine supporters. The few that worked with her or for her cause were eliminated. That's the word that they used when the addressed us. Eliminated.

The members of the old government came together to form a new committee of 5 members. An elected member from each faction would represent it's faction in the new government. Three from each faction were nominated and the faction with ideals most strongly contrasting the other voted on the leaders after they were given a brief description of each nominee. Dauntless voted on the Abnegation leader, Abnegation voted for Erudite, Erudite voted for Amity, Amity voted for Candor and Candor voted for elected a woman for Dauntless. I can never remember her name but the new committee seems to be doing a good job so far. Tobias and I were both nominated. We both turned the nomination down.

Each member of each faction had the option to re-choose their faction. Most stayed. Each member was also assigned a new task until the factions are structurally and economically rebuilt. I was assigned to the housing department. Specifically rebuilding standard living spaces. There was a lot of damage to parts of Dauntless including about half of the apartment units. Until the units a repaired and new ones built, everyone shares a unit with three other people. I wasn't in control of who ended up being assigned to live together. Clearly. As it would happen, randomly, though it hardly could be, I was assigned to live with Tori,Tobias and another guy named Chris. As it would figure, Molly was the person who assigned me to live with them. The housing choices were final and un-negotiable.

I didn't really react to finding out I was going to be living with him. It was Tori that I was worried about. When I came back from Jeanine's lab I was very different. I went completely ballistic to say the least. I had a mental breakdown and didn't speak to anyone for over two weeks. I just stopped. She was the reason I finally started speaking again. It wasn't a good reason.

[flashback]

I had refused food for around three days. I was sitting on my bed, silently, staring blankly at the wall that was across from me. I was in a weird state of shock. Completely useless. Mostly everyone had learned to leave me alone. There was no point in trying to get me to do anything. I ate only when absolutely necessary and I stayed awake until I collapsed from exhaustion. That way I couldn;t have any nightmares. There was no one to comfort me when I woke up in the middle of the night anymore. I was pitiful and childish and overly sorry for myself. Nobody wanted to point this out. Nobody except Tori.

She walked up to me, sat down on the floor next to me. She just looked at me for a minute and then shook her head and started laughing.

"You know, you remind me a lot of myself when my brother died." she said, still chuckling. "Except for the fact that I had the decency to stand up, work and try to grieve for him while still respecting his memory. Not just sit around all day feeling sorry for myself and trying to die, which by the way, if you hadn't noticed, happens to be exactly what you're doing."

She stared at me, I stared back. I wanted to say something to her. I wanted to scream at her for saying that. I wanted to tell her that she didn't know what the hell she was talking about. That she hadn't lost everything and everyone around her. I wanted to say it but I didn't. I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth. She spoke again.

"So your family died and your brother betrayed you and you betrayed Four and now he doesn't want you and you're heartbroken. That's life. We lose people, sometimes everyone. We feel like our whole world is being crushed and like we have nobody But you don't just sit here and wallow about your miserable life. You get the fuck up and you get pissed and you scream at every person that has ever hurt you and then you find new people."

So I screamed.

In fact I did more than scream. I stood up quicker than she could react to and I kicked her. Dead on the face. I screamed and screamed and laid blows on her that she just couldn't respond was 26 and in much better physical combatting condition than me. I don't remember what I said to her but I know it wasn't good. Every single one of my nerves was on fire and my muscles were tensed and my heart was pounding and they didn't drag me off of her. They didn't help her at all. Every single person in that warehouse watched as I beat her until she stopped screaming because she was slumped over. Unconscious. Almost dead.

[end of flashback]

They let didn't wake up for three days. I broke her ribs, jaw, nose and gave her a major concussion. She could have died. They told me it was because I was so important that they needed me back in any way they could reach me. They told her the same thing. Is it any wonder why she hates me? I tried to go see her when she was awake. I sat next to her and she just stared at me. I told her how sorry I was. I didn't excuse what I did. I didn't even ask for her forgiveness. I just told her how sorry I was for what I had done. She stared at me. Her gaze burned through me and I didn't know what to do other than stare back.

She was furious and rightfully so. But there was more than just resentment, there was an underlying fear. And with that came a hatred. She hated me for what I had done and it wasn't because I messed her up. In that moment I realized the true gravity of what I had done. I'd embarrassed her, I'd nearly killed her and she would never be able to look at me without seeing the maniacal side of me that came out that day. She would always fear me, and she would always resent me for the embarrassment that I had brought upon her. And she knew everyone had let her be beaten to near death, excused my actions, because they 'needed me back', because I was 'important'. I would never excuse myself, and neither would she. She didn't have to tell me to get the hell out, I knew.

But that wasn't the end of it. I expected her to get revenge on me. I knew she would find a way to hurt me and I knew I wouldn't be prepared for it. But I expected physical blows and instead what she did was a lot more than physical. She played him. She knew how to hurt me and so she found solise in him. And he found solise in her. They became friends quickly, having few other people to confide in, and also having been betrayed by me. She knew what she was doing as much as I did. Nobody was surprised, and though it felt like a knife in my stomach being twisted around, I wasn't all that surprised either. In a state of shock, and mentally hanging on by a thread, but surprised? Hardly.

It was even less of a shock to my mentality when I found out that they were having sex. Christina knew because her task was the same as Tori's and apparently she had been talking about it. I tried to hate them for it, but I couldn't. I couldn't hate them for it because I was the reason they were doing this. It was my own fault and God knows they're adults. Maybe acting immaturely, but then again, I threw a temper tantrum because my parents died and my boyfriend broke up with me. I handled my pain immaturely and they retaliated by handling their anger towards me immaturely. It's like nobody ever grew up.

I will say this. i have a lot of perspective now. As well as a reason to keep on fighting through this mental state. It's not like I'm not still hurting, but at least I have the knowledge that things really can't get any worse. The mornings kind of suck though. When I first wake up and I'm half asleep and for a split second I don't remember anything. And then my fingers search for him lying next to me and I swear I can smell him on the pillowcase and then there's only cold sheets. I have to remind myself I'm Tris Prior, I'm from the Dauntless Faction in Chicago, my parents died, there was a war, I love Tobias, he's having sex with Tori, I betrayed him, I betrayed her, I need to go build apartment units so that I don't have to stay with them.


End file.
